The invention relates to an apparatus for the transport and stocking (storage) of cigarettes in a plurality of containers which are arranged next to one another and form a storage unit and which can be filled in a filling station by means of a filling member, in particular via a filling orifice formed in the region of a bottom wall. The invention relates, furthermore, to details of the design and handling of the containers receiving the cigarettes.
The handling of cigarettes after their manufacture and before packaging causes particular problems in the packaging of cigarettes. The cigarette-producing machines (makers) manufacture cigarettes with a high output of, for example, 16,000 cigarettes per minute. A relatively large number of cigarettes must be supplied to the packaging machine in an expedient way. At the same time, operational fluctuations in output of the cigarette-producing machine and of the following packaging machine have to be taken into account. It is therefore customary to place storage devices for cigarettes in the region between the two units. Depending on the fluctuations in output, cigarettes are conveyed into this store or dispensed from it.
So-called trestles are known for the stocking and transport of cigarettes, namely containers which are open on two sides and which serve for receiving cigarette stock. The trestles are conventionally moved to the place of use on carriages and are emptied by tipping in the region of a cigarette magazine of a packaging machine.
However, there is also already a known store with a plurality of vertical containers which are connected to form a storage unit and which each serve for receiving a cigarette stock. These containers are filled with cigarettes from above and are emptied via a lower extraction orifice (DE 2,900,778).